


Cause and Effect

by Lackyducks



Series: Polyship Prompt Week [6]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Claustrophobia, Guilt, Gunshot Wounds, Heist gone wrong, Injury Recovery, James In Pain, Multi, Psychological Torture, Self-Worth Issues, There's Fucking Torture, Torture, it's a good time!! fun for all the family!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 11:19:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7889548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lackyducks/pseuds/Lackyducks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James makes stupid decisions, lots of them. It turns out this one has consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cause and Effect

**Author's Note:**

> Oops?  
> Prompt:  
> http://polyshipprompts.tumblr.com/post/131368641139/imagine-person-a-of-your-polyship-attempting-to

The heist went wrong in a blink. 

Somebody sold them out, that's all they can think of. One second it's okay, each of them are in position, using stealth to get through this warehouse. The next moment it's chaos. 

“I- I'm leaving my position I need asse- assit- help.” They all freeze up at Matt's voice over the comms, and then they can hear the sound of a gunshot, can hear Matt's pained cry before the line goes dead once more. The crackles don't even silence before they're talking again. 

“Matt?! Matt,  _ fuck. _ ” Lawrence mutters, his typing echoing even across the static filled connection. Adam, James, Elyse and Bruce are in the warehouse, this was supposed to be a ‘sneak in, sneak out’ mission. Apparently not anymore. Lawrence was sat with Sean and Joel in their van. The two must have left by now to try and get to Matt. Matt, who was on a roof a far distance from them and  _ supposed _ to be out of harm's way. Apparently not. 

Sirens suddenly ring out through the building, bright red lights flashing. James spins as the door behind him suddenly clicks and he stiffens. 

“Lawrence, something triggered an alarm.” Adam sounds panicked, James is already running through the large area he's been caught in. “We're locked in, all the doors are locked.” The warehouse is laid out similar to an office, long corridors leading off to smaller rooms. It's a human trafficking ring and most of the rooms have the familiar stains of blood. James feels sick looking at each one of them.

“I've been locked out of the system, I need to get back in.” Lawrence tells them and it shouldn't be possible to type as fast as he is. James thinks back to the maps of the warehouse, hand trailing along the wall of the corridors as he sprints. He spins around another hall, and it opens into another larger room. Bullets whiz past him and he grits his teeth, flattens himself against the wall and starts firing back. 

“Status, everybody.” Bruce demands, trying to get a grip of the situation they've found themselves in.

“Fine.” Lawrence mutters.

“All good here, looking for a way out.” James tells them. 

“Panicked but safe. I'm stuck in a room.” Adam adds and James’ heart tightens at that information. That makes his job all the more important.

“I'm all good here. Think both doors in my section are locked, though.” Elyse sounds out of breath, James is sure she must've run from one end of the hall to another. There's silence. 

“Sean and Joel?” Bruce asks. More silence. “Guys, report in.” A beat. Bruce’s sharp breaths.

“We're fine, sorry. Something is fucking the comm up here. Almost at Matt's last position.” Joel answers, at last. Bruce’s sigh of relief is audible across the earpieces. “Sorry for the silence, heading back into blocked zone.”

“Make contact whenever possible.” Bruce tells him. 

“Got it.” And Joel’s side of the line goes dead. James is finally able to creep across the hall, breaking open the door to the room - shooting the man stood in it straight in the head. He creeps over to the control panel, flicking through the cameras until he can see Bruce, Adam and Elyse. There are five feeds, he keeps one outside his room too. He looks at the control panel, at the door names and honestly just starts pressing at random.

“Lawrence are you doing something? My door just opened.” Elyse says, James flicks through the camera feed to keep track of her. It only takes him a few seconds to relate the labelling on the doors to the blueprints and then he's able to open the doors for both Adam and Bruce. 

“I'm not in yet, someone must be doing it manually or the system is breaking down.” Lawrence sounds worried. James huffs.

“Just try and focus on getting out guys.” He tells them, “We've been given an opportunity so let's take it.” 

“Oh believe me, I am.” Adam retorts. James concentrates, it's a juggling act, keeping them on the camera and closing and opening doors to make sure they're safe and going in the right direction. James groans when Bruce takes a wrong turn again, makes sure that door is shut.

“I'm beginning to feel like this could be leading us into a trap.” Bruce says, as he tries the door.

“Better than nothing. At least we'll be prepared.” James even shrugs, far too into his acting. Another few button presses, another few camera swaps. He taps his feet against the floor, mindful of the dead body barely inches away. 

“We've got Matt.” Sean pipes up, jumping them all. “He's- he doesn't look good.”

“Somebody got the jump on him, two gunshot wounds, it looks like they fucking  _ beat  _ him until he fell unconscious.” Joel adds, noting Sean’s discomfort. “I'm not sure if it's safe to move him, I think there's broken bones.” 

“You're gonna have to, I'm sorry. We don't have anyone we can call in right now.” Bruce sounds distraught. James decides to zone out the conversation, continues to flick through the cameras and flick open doors. It's pretty mundane for a heist. How does Lawrence do this? Maybe the hacking is what makes it worth it but even  _ that _ feels like it couldn't save this. 

It feels worth it as he gets Elyse outside. She cheers, makes a sprint for the van. There's still gunshots on her, but James can hear her voice and knows she's okay, even if he can't see it on the cameras anymore. Fuck, he’s able to hear when she goes to help with Matt, their panic over the fallen boyfriend. 

James waits for what he deems long enough before he says, “I've got out through a different exit, um, I think I'm gonna have to steal a car and head to the safe house - not safe enough to get round.” 

“Okay, just stay on comms. We'll meet you there.” Bruce tells him, as he manages to get to one of the exits. It's the same one Elyse went through, and James is able to see him take a moment to orientate himself before he's heading to the van, out of James’ sight. Of course, James sighs because then the focus is on Adam. All of the hallways are beginning to feel endless, even just watching them. 

At the final one though, James sees movement in his camera. The camera focusing on the room outside his door and oh, that's a lot of people heading towards him. He flicks open the final door Adam needs, barely has the time to turn and raise his gun when it's being knocked out of his hand. The chair he'd tried to use as a barricade clatters to the ground. The noise is the only thing James properly registers as he has to bring his hand up to quickly slap the wrist of the guy, knock the gun away from him. The guy’s other arm pulls around, pushes James into the control panel by his throat and then James’ back curves and his head slams into the wall. James kicks up and it catches the guy, pushes him back into someone else who's just walked in. 

It's, it's much harder to concentrate now, the noise from the comms alerting him to Adam's safety but he can't let himself revel in it. One of them is grabbing his arm and James is barely able to twist out of it before his other arm is being grabbed and he's struggling but he isn't connecting now. There's a kick at the base of his back and James collapses, gasping for breaths as they take out his earpiece, remove the microphone and James clings to the thought that the others are  _ safe. _

“Well, at least the money from you will make up for the loss of my men.” Somebody is knelt down in front of his face, hand tilting James’ chin. James glares at the blurred figure, spits at him. His reward is a brutally hard slap that sends him reeling to the side. “Fast track him.” 

Painfully, he's dragged back up to his feet, led through the corridors in a dizzying manner and he feels lost, unsure of where he is. 

It's one of those too small rooms and he's finally pushed back to his knees. Something secures his wrists behind him and he still tries to tug against it - to struggle the little he can - but his wrists are connected to the floor and he's forced to lean backwards. There's a second when he looks up at the men, baring his teeth, until a hand in his hair causes him to gasp out in pain and the only thing he remembers of after is  _ agony.  _

When his thoughts finally clear enough, he's panting in the same fucking kneeling position but everything hurts now. He can feel the bruises across his body, is sure one of his ribs might be broken and blood is dripping down, staining his clothes, the floor, his skin. He can barely open one of his eyes. It stings. His back aches from how it's pulled and he only hopes that the broken rib doesn't pierce his lung. Maybe it should, hopefully he'd die sooner. The guys aren't coming for him - he sent them away - and it stings a little that they won't know what he did for them. Surely that's selfish, they're going to mourn him but he's annoyed they'll never know what he did. He imagines they'll be angry when he doesn't come back. Maybe they're angry now? At least they're out, they're all together and what's James to that? He's made his grave with his own two hands so he'll sit in it. 

Time passes.

The strain on his back gets past unbearable and he eventually lies down, awkwardly on his side to avoid lying on the ring that his wrists are attached to. He attempts to untie the rope but his body isn't responding properly, his fingers on his right side refuse to grip completely. He hopes it's just a sprain. He doesn't know how wrists work, just that his fingers feel numb. He sleeps for a little bit, perhaps it's falling unconscious, but every time he's awoken by yelling, kicking and they force him back up to kneel. He feels exhaustion settling into his bones. At some point they start to shine a too bright light through the window in the door. Sleeping gets harder after that. 

He's moved again, at last. Ropes are replaced with handcuffs and his hands ache as they do. It finally clicks somewhere in his brain that they must have been constricting the blood flow. He wants to look and try and see if there's a blue tinge. He doesn't want to lose his hands. He's let in a bathroom, only for ten minutes and his hands are still bound behind him which makes things far more difficult but he manages. He's also sure that less than ten minutes pass before he's dragged out once more, taken somewhere new. 

His ‘new home’, as they'd called it, is similar to a locker. Just, there's no small window at the front, no light shining through. The front is secured tightly, and he can't even make out the door in front of him properly. 

It's just, so  _ small.  _ His arms are pinned behind him, he's forced to crouch awkwardly and he can barely even shuffle, can't move his feet backwards, can't move his body forwards. He never considered himself actually claustrophobic but panic begins to set in quickly. He tries to move, mostly to reassure himself that he can but he  _ can't  _ and everything feels too close, too tight. It starts cold, the metal against his bare skin, and then it's not cold anymore. His breath warms the air, and it's stuffy and he's hyperventilating and James is  _ terrified.  _ Tears roll down his cheeks, his body struggling to hold up as it cramps in every muscle and his shaking echoes. There's no sense of time, no sense of anything, and he wants to cry out and scream but he can't gather the breath to do so. 

He feels like he might be sick from the pain and the panic alone. He managed to get a bit of water from the tap in the bathroom but his head pounds, his sheet of sweat, his tears and his still sluggishly bleeding body (they bandaged the worst wounds, like the head one) all contributing to what he's sure must be dehydration now. If he knew how much time had passed he'd be able to judge whether the pains in his stomach are from hunger or bruising. 

He barely registers when the door opens, and he falls out. Does register the pain as he hits the floor, though, the pain as he’s picked up because he feels so weak he can’t even stand. They let him in the bathroom and then he’s bound kneeling once more, this time falling to his side almost immediately. He settles in for the night.

The next, _ whenever, _ he’s given a protein shake and beaten again. He doesn’t even try to fight back. Just, lets them. There’s no part of him that doesn’t hurt, he thinks he passes out a few times. He isn’t sure anymore. His fingernails dig so deep into his palms he draws blood. They leave him on the floor, and he’s not sure if he can’t open his eyes or he doesn’t want to. The world is muffled, far away from him. He feels so tired. He passes out, lets the cold of the room seep into his bones.

The world resumes with explosions. 

He should probably be worried, shouldn’t he? The familiar ring of gunfire sounds out, sirens blast once more. He sighs, too tired to care. His mind only vaguely registers it, his shallow breaths making his head spin. It doesn’t stop, gets closer and then he can hear doors slamming open along the corridor, tries to look up but his head is a dead weight on his body. Then his door is suddenly slammed open and there’s shouting, hands on him. 

“He’s in here, we’ve got him- we got him.” That’s Bruce, that, yeah. That’s Brucie. He manages to strain his eyes open, sees Elyse’s face, as she carefully sits him up. She scowls at the ropes.

“Bruce, can you get these, please.” She calls over to him, and Bruce crouches down beside the two, carefully cutting through the ropes, letting them fall away from James’ bloody wrists. Elyse pulls them gently forwards, sits them into his lap and he marvels at how good a thing like having his hands in front of him feels. “Okay, honey, we’re going to move you now, I’m sorry.” She whispers, letting Bruce step in. He reaches in, scoops James up, and James feels the slightest bit concerned at that. Either Bruce is stronger than he remembers or he’s lighter. But then it pulls all his muscles and it  _ hurts.  _ He cries out, involuntarily tries to seize up and there are hands steadying him, laying him back down.

“He’s too light.” Bruce whispers and oh, that answers his question. He hears Elyse’s punched out breath.

“Come on, Adam and Joel can only cover us so long.” She says, tugging at his arm. James whines, doesn’t quite recognise the noise as his own and Elyse makes a pained noise in response. James feels a hand wrap around his, and he tightens his hand around it the best he can. “We’re here, honey. We’re here now, you’re going to be okay. Just gotta get through this last bit, okay?” 

“‘urts.” James barely mutters, his throat screaming in protest. Both Elyse and Bruce make pained noises now.

“I know, I know, we’re gonna make it better.” He can hear the distress creeping into her voice. Elyse shouldn’t be upset, she’s too good for that. Lovely Elyse. 

He blinks his eyes open, glancing at the moving hallway walls. He looks up at Bruce, focused straight ahead. He’s getting blood on his shirt. Why’s he doing that? He likes this shirt. He hears the static of the earpiece, knows somebody’s talking. There’s an unfamiliarity to not being able to hear the other’s voices. Elyse fires her gun, the noise echoing in James’ mind. She still does it beautifully with one hand. 

“James, hey,” She whispers, he tilts his head despite his neck’s protests to look at her. His view of her is blurred, he must be crying, “We’re outside.” James blinks, breaks eye contact with her as he sees the blue sky. It’s midday, the sunlight hurts his eyes. But just, seeing the sky again is such a relief that he can’t help but look anyway. Elyse seems to notice his squinting, holds a hand up to give him shade. It doesn’t quite work when she’s still holding a gun but, hey. 

Then there are two others running towards them. James recognises the curls before he recognises the people. They stop in front of them, falling in line beside their walking.

“Oh god, James.” Joel breathes out, reaches and takes James’ other hand. He sees Adam’s worried eyes, tries to smile to reassure them. “Yeah, don’t do that. You look like a wreck.” Joel shakes his head, but he’s smiling now. That’s good. He suddenly realises how distorted his vision has become, a blackness creeping in from the edges and he suddenly feels so, so tired, feels himself go slack. 

“What’s happening? James, James?!” And then James feels himself slip away.

The world around him comes back in stages. He can hear, at first. The beeping of a heart monitor, the sound of birds outside. He can hear breathing too, the sound of a page turning every so often. He lets it all fall away again.

The next time, he comes back to talking. There’s warmth, a hand stroking his cheek. He can feel the warmth of the sun, there must be a window next to him. He can see the light against his closed eyelids. There’s a weight in the bed beside him, the warmth of another body.

“We need to talk to him.” Adam’s voice. He sounds angry but sad. That’s just Adam. Adam’s like that. James loves him anyway. 

“Well, yeah.” That’s Lawrence.

“He can’t- He can’t do this to us! If we knew we could’ve, got him out! He would have been safe, he can’t just do this, he can’t lie on the field! How are we supposed to trust him after this?” Adam exclaims and James mentally flinches. Adam’s angry at  _ him.  _ He’s angry at James, James did something wrong. The beeping quickens. “Lawrence!” There are hands on him, carefully feeling for something James can’t work out. 

“He’s fine.” Lawrence tells him, “But maybe this is something we should talk about elsewhere.” And James hears Adam’s noise of pain before it’s all gone again. 

The next time, it’s to Joel’s humming. He can hear, he can feel, the sheets are warm, fluffy and they’re tightly nestled around him, how he likes it. He can’t feel any casts, thinks it’s a miracle he came away without any broken bones. There’s a dull ache around everything, though. A tiredness. He wonders how long it’s been. Something reaches over, there’s a hand in James’ hair, and he hums happily.

“Are you slightly more awake at the moment, hey?” Joel asks, sounds excited about that. James squeezes his eyes, manages to blink them open at last, seeing Joel in front of him. There’s a burst of pride when he sees Joel smile. “Welcome back, babe.” He reaches forward, gently kisses James’ forehead. James hums again in response. “Give me a moment, I’ll get you a drink.” And Joel sits back and James mourns the lack of his presence as he bounces out of the room. He watches the door, notices a small face looking around the frame at him. Sean. James smiles at him, and Sean slowly approaches. He looks like James might vanish at any second, vanish or leap out and get him.

“You’re awake.” Sean says, and James nods. Sean’s mouth opens, and he looks down, closes it again. He carefully shuffles James to the side, shimmies into the bed beside him, head resting on James’ chest. After he’s settled he happily shuts his eyes. James fights through the pain in his arm to lift it onto Sean. 

“Sean.” Joel’s voice makes James look back up. He has a drink in his hands, just simple water with a straw in. James thinks that’s smart.

Sean makes a dismissive noise, “You said I could when he’s awake.” Joel rolls his eyes, sits in the chair next to James’ bed and helps prop him up. James drinks the water, and it feels so good on his dry mouth. They must’ve been making sure he’s hydrated but it just, it feels  _ amazing.  _ He drinks the entire cup, and Joel sets it down on the table beside him.

“You need more?” Joel asks. 

James shakes his head, “N-no.” He’s pretty proud of himself for managing that, even with the slight stumble. Joel smiles.

“I think Sean’s asleep on you.” He points out, and James looks down, sees Sean curled up on his stomach, breathing gently. “At least he isn’t on your chest, the last thing we need is more damage to that.” James looks back up to Joel with a frown on his face.

“How bad am I?” He asks. Joel averts his eyes.

“Not as bad as you could have been, considering-” He waves a hand, avoiding the word, “- There’s lots of bruising, I don’t recommend looking at yourself for a while. Your torso took the brunt of it, I assume that was your positioning. We had to drain the blood around your lung, that was pretty bad but that was the only surgery needed. Lots of head trauma, trauma in general really.” Joel breaks off, finally shakes his head. “They were arguing over whether it was safe to clean you, you know? They thought the water might stop your heart again.”

“Again?” James asks. 

“Yeah. Again.” Joel silences after that, shakes off the memory of that, their panic, their screaming and yelling as they desperately tried to restart it. It’s not something any of them will forget. 

“Oh.” James simply says, because he, he _ died _ . Oh. 

“Oh.” Joel mimics. They fall into silence, before the thing that had been bothering James reminds himself of its presence. 

“Peake is okay?” He asks. Joel smiles at the question, warmth taking back the cold detachment of before.

“Not perfect, but he’s better than you.” Joel tells him, with a smirk. James laughs at that, knows that at least Joel is okay with joking around with him. Even if Adam is angry.

“Adam’s angry?” He asks. Joel’s eyes widen.

“You remember that? Hell, you were awake during that?” James nods, “We weren’t sure but Adam freaked out, he spent an hour apologising to you after, just in case you could hear him. He was crying, we’re all pretty messed up over this, I’m sorry.” 

“I promise I’ve learnt my lesson.” James whispers, and he’s the one breaking eye contact now, looking down at Sean’s hair, how his arms are wrapped lazily around James, face sliding down while his cheek stays in the same place. He looks like a dork. “I promise I won’t do that again, Joel. I promise-” He breaks off, feels tears come to his eyes again. “I was so scared.” Joel reaches forward, grabs one of James’ hands with wide eyes. He kisses him, lets James lean against him as he cries. “It all hurt so much Joel- it hurt so much.”

“I know, I know, darling.” Joel whispers, a weight in his voice James can’t comprehend, “They, they had videos of it all and I am so, so sorry that they did that to you. I am so sorry.”

“Videos?” James breathes and Joel nods, sighs and the breath is warm on James’ face. He doesn’t say anything, so James lets it drop. They stay resting there in silence, James beginning to drift back into sleep again.

“Hey, guys?” A voice calls, Matt. Joel sits back up, wipes his face with his hands.

“Hey, we’re in here Matt.” Joel tells him. Matt pauses at the doorway, one hand holding onto the frame as he peeks in. He sees James awake and looks briefly surprised. Matt finally steps in, stands awkwardly in the room instead of the door. 

“Hi.” James greets, and Matt holds a hand up to his mouth, looks so relieved.

“You’re awake, you’re  _ awake. _ ” He whispers and James tries to give what looks like a comforting smile. Matt rushes forward, wraps the arm that isn’t in a cast around James. All of them are quiet for a bit, the four relaxing together. Matt turns to Joel, “Is everybody out?”

“Yeah.” He nods. Matt sighs, relaxes on James. 

“I thought you were  _ dead _ , James. Don’t you dare do that again. Don’t do that to me.” Matt sounds like he’s begging and James feels an awful guilt settle in his stomach.

“I’m sorry.” James tries to comfort him, but Matt just reaches back, hits him on the shoulder.

“Next time don’t be a self-sacrificial idiot!” Matt exclaims, his eyes squeezed shut.

“I- I’m sorry I just, I knew where the control room was and you’d got hurt and I wanted to get everyone out and I wanted to sneak out after but-” He breaks off, tries not to think of that memory “It was me or Adam.”

“It really wasn’t but I understand your reasoning.” Joel says, “We were all panicking, we should have been smarter to see you were being a stupid.”

“I lied to make sure you  _ couldn’t. _ ” James points out.

Joel scoffs, “Your lying is about as good as Pinocchio's.” James laughs, the other two joining in with him. James notices the familiar feeling of sleep creeping up on him again. He sighs.

“I’m gon’ go back to sleep.” He mutters, settling back into the pillows. Matt sits back off him, stands up again. At the same time, Joel rubs his hand across James’ hair.

“You do that.” He says, so James does.

When James next wakes up, he assumes it’s the same day, because outside, the sun is setting, and Sean is still on top of him. Joel and Matt aren’t in the room now, though, instead it’s Bruce and Lawrence. James turns to them, and Bruce looks up from what Lawrence is doing on the laptop, notices him. He passes over another drink, though, this time it’s orange juice instead of water. Still through a straw. 

“Morning sleeping beauty.” Bruce greets him as he pulls the empty cup away. Lawrence finally looks up, as if he hadn’t noticed what was happening until then. “How you feeling?”

“Sore.” James answers, because yeah that’s the truth. Lawrence snorts a laugh whilst Bruce shakes his head at him.

“Trust me, it’s going to be so much worse when we have to start getting you off the drugs.” He jokes. James scowls at him.

“Oh I can’t wait.” He rolls his eyes at Lawrence’s smug look.

“Consider it karma for making us all panic, you ass.” He says. James blinks at him, curious.

“I thought you’d be angrier.” James admits.

“No, I’m still angry,” Bruce nods his agreement, “But Joel has told us that you regret your actions and promise not to do it again, and I think that getting angry isn’t going to help anyone at the moment.” 

“It’s not like we’ll be doing heists like that for a while when neither you or Peake can be on field.” Bruce says, and James hadn’t considered that.

“We’ll be okay though, won’t we?” James asks. Bruce laughs.

“Of course, you know we only do these for fun.” He reminds him. James smiles.

“Yeah.”

James is awake a lot more after that, his sleeping schedule slowly returning to a normal one. The others never leave him alone, rotate as they wish. Sean pretty much moves in with him, and so Matt does too. And slowly but surely, James is able to start moving a bit more, Bruce is the one who mostly guides him through the process. Lawrence helps, and Joel fills the role of an overly peppy cheerleader. It’s the day after James has been able to do a circle of the room, falling back into the bed, he brings up something that has been worrying him.

“Are Adam and Elyse okay?” He asks Bruce, who’s sat with him at the moment.

“They’re avoiding you.” Bruce answers with an unbothered shrug. James turns to look at him, surprised. When Bruce meets his eyes, they dissolve into worry, “It’s nothing you’ve done, they both feel guilty. They’ll get their heads out of their asses soon. I hope.”

“I want to see them.” James says, looks down at his hands. He can feel Bruce’s sad smile as he looks at them.

“I’ll make sure they know.” He comforts James, reaches a hand around so he can pull him against his side. James huffs, lets himself relax there.

It’s still a while until he gets to see either Adam or Elyse. Now he knows they feel guilty he, he feels  _ awful.  _ This was his fault they shouldn’t- they shouldn’t feel bad. They didn’t do anything, he did it so they’d be safe! They shouldn’t feel guilty for that. That was his own stupid mistake to make.

James wakes up to hands in his hair. He curses himself for breaking his schedule again, he’d been doing so well. Opening his eyes, he sees familiar blonde hair, turned away, talking to someone.

“We have to wake him up, he needs to eat dinner.” Elyse says, to whoever’s stood behind her.

“Can’t we just get one of the others to?” It’s Adam behind her, or well, in front of her. 

She sighs, “We can’t keep avoiding him, he already feels bad about it.”

“It’s easier than facing him.” Adam replies. James blinks, looks down, feels  _ awful.  _

“I’m sorry,” He whispers, “I am.” They both turn to him, shocked.

“You’re awake.” Elyse mutters, amazed and there’s an underlying guilt to her voice. “Fuck.” She steps up, grabs Adam’s arm and forces him forwards. Now James can see him, he realises that Adam looks completely ready to run. Elyse was probably smart to grab him. James tilts his head at the two of them.

“What’s wrong?” He asks. He notices the plate of food that’s on the side table, assumes that’s his dinner for the night. Looking at it, it’s definitely one of Joel’s. 

“James, we’ve been awful to you, and I’m so sorry.” Elyse speaks first. She runs a hand up her face, her hair pushing up around it. “We’ve all been idiots and we should have been helping you - like decent partners.” 

“It’s fi-”

“No don’t you dare.” She interrupts him, “We’re still going to have a nice and long conversation about your behaviour because what you did was out of line and irresponsible but we’re also going to help you because we know that it’s something you shouldn’t have to work through yourself.” She nods, proud of herself for managing to say that. 

“I promise I meant to get out.” James whispers, knows they’ve already had discussions about his willingness to throw his life out for others. It’s happened before, just never as bad as this. Never with consequences like this. Elyse nods at him, sadness etched across her features.

“We know you did, this is nobody’s fault, okay? We were all idiots and you ended up paying the price for it, and I’m so sorry for that.” James bows his head. It was still his fault, he shouldn’t have lied, should have told them he was still in the building- “Okay you’re blaming yourself I can tell.”

“I should have said something.” He whispers. Elyse shakes her head.

“And we should have made sure that we knew you were safe instead of taking your word for it because you’re fucking stupid and we know that.” She walks over, kisses his hair. “And we love you.”

“I love you too.” He smiles at her and then the moment is broken because he coughs and she stands properly, eyes widening. 

“Okay I’m getting you a drink.” She says, and then she leaves. Adam and James stare at each other. 

“I know you didn’t mean what you said.” James tries, and Adam huffs, smiles but there’s no happiness in the look. 

“You went into cardiac arrest in Bruce’s arms.” Adam shakes his head, as if in disbelief, “You  _ died  _ in Bruce’s arm.” James eyes widen because he can remember that but, he didn’t realise- didn’t know he was literally  _ dying.  _ “None of us knew what to do, Joel had to do CPR, and thank fuck Lawrence was able to get some of his equipment to provide the electric shocks - you could have never woken up, James. We would never have gotten to see you smile, you laugh, hear your voice, our last memories of you would be covered in your own blood after being tortured - Sean and Matt’s would be back before then, even. They had to listen as all this happened, we didn’t let them come out and they had to-” He chokes on his own words and James sits up, makes the few careful steps to Adam. He wraps his arms around him, feels Adam’s wrap around him, as he starts crying into his shoulder.

“I thought I was just falling asleep.” James whispers, “I didn’t know, I- I didn’t  _ know. _ ” He shakes slightly, crying too. He can just see Elyse out of the corner of his vision, as she hangs back at the door and just watches the two of them. 

“James, what they did to you- I’m so sorry, I’m so so sorry.” Adam sounds heartbroken, his grip tightens at just the thought.

“Yeah, no small spaces for a while, please. Or ever. Ever would be best.”

“I think we can do that.” Adam replies, laughing at James’ comment. He pulls back slightly, grabs James’ cheeks to pull him into a kiss and James almost buckles, has to grip Adam to stay up. He laughs into the kiss anyway, kisses back. He can hear Elyse’s laugh too. 

“If you two are done making out James needs to eat his dinner.” She interrupts, finally walking in. Adam glares at her, but walks James back to his bed, helps him sit down on it. Elyse pulls the table closer, sits on James’ other side. He lets the two of them feed him, laughing as they do, Elyse perfectly pulling off the aeroplane trick. At some point, Matt and Sean come back, sit in the bed that they’d managed to squeeze in the room for Matt. And technically Sean, he doesn’t leave it anyway. 

By the end of the night, they’ve all gathered in the room, crowded around Lawrence as he plays a game on his laptop, cheering him on loudly as he fights in the multiplayer. Things aren’t perfect, and James will never quite heal, but they’ve kept going, that’s what counts. Also, Lawrence wins the match. That counts too.


End file.
